Dillon Cole || Scorpion Shard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
orderfromchaos) wrote2016-03-23 01:38 am
orderfromchaos) wrote2016-03-23 01:38 am
(no subject)
[Video 10: Dillon at Auschwitz. CW: the holocaust. CW: Shusterman is not the most sensitive Author in the world. Private to Stanford, and your character too if you want to deal with that."]
It's Dillon and the same two boys and the redheaded girl from Vegas, in very different circumstances. The scene skips and jumps. "This is what you are meant to do," insists a middle-aged man with an Israeli accent, in a yarmulke that matches his three thousand dollar suit, clapping Dillon on the shoulder.
There is a pit of dark black mud in a concrete square, already starting to bubble and writhe as the shards approach it. Dillon wades in and the others follow him, and seize each other's hands. As soon as they touch, everything accelerates. The mud churns, turns slowly dark red, recognizable shapes emerging. Staved-skinny, filthy, naked, utterly confused men start to crawl out of the muck. The man in the suit is there, and a small army of nurses, helping them get out, get clean, get dress, offering water and good and seats on fancy double-decker buses, brief explanations in German and Yiddish and Polish.
The same scene, another place another pit, and the same again.
Until the last.
"We won't be able to control this," hisses the black boy, in a helicopter. It's only him and Dillon, now. "It's going to swallow us like it swallowed millions before." Both of them look strained.
And -
"We have to face it," Dillon says, on land again. "
Why?"
"I don't know."
The Israeli walks them through the terrible, famous gate. There's snow on the ground; both boys are unsteady on their feet. As they pass, the old buildings turn new; the winter birch trees put out spring leaves, even start new branches.
"Syntaxis," the other boy whispers, the same word the Shards used when they touched before. "No," Dillon says, "Contain yourself, Winston. Syntaxis will kill us. We have to face this place alone."
Dillon's pupils are the ones blown out wide now. He's staring at nothing, but whatever he's seeing overwhelms him, horrifies and paralyzes him. His jaw is clenched tight, and so are his hands at his sides. Winson falls to the ground, curls into a fetal position, but Dillon remains standing. Eventually, panting, he closes his eyes, and the view pulls back: the regeneration of the buildings, of the trees, the perturbations of the ground have all stopped. Dillon helps Winston to his feet, both of them shaken and solemn. They walk back out of the gate.
It's Dillon and the same two boys and the redheaded girl from Vegas, in very different circumstances. The scene skips and jumps. "This is what you are meant to do," insists a middle-aged man with an Israeli accent, in a yarmulke that matches his three thousand dollar suit, clapping Dillon on the shoulder.
There is a pit of dark black mud in a concrete square, already starting to bubble and writhe as the shards approach it. Dillon wades in and the others follow him, and seize each other's hands. As soon as they touch, everything accelerates. The mud churns, turns slowly dark red, recognizable shapes emerging. Staved-skinny, filthy, naked, utterly confused men start to crawl out of the muck. The man in the suit is there, and a small army of nurses, helping them get out, get clean, get dress, offering water and good and seats on fancy double-decker buses, brief explanations in German and Yiddish and Polish.
The same scene, another place another pit, and the same again.
Until the last.
"We won't be able to control this," hisses the black boy, in a helicopter. It's only him and Dillon, now. "It's going to swallow us like it swallowed millions before." Both of them look strained.
And -
"We have to face it," Dillon says, on land again. "
Why?"
"I don't know."
The Israeli walks them through the terrible, famous gate. There's snow on the ground; both boys are unsteady on their feet. As they pass, the old buildings turn new; the winter birch trees put out spring leaves, even start new branches.
"Syntaxis," the other boy whispers, the same word the Shards used when they touched before. "No," Dillon says, "Contain yourself, Winston. Syntaxis will kill us. We have to face this place alone."
Dillon's pupils are the ones blown out wide now. He's staring at nothing, but whatever he's seeing overwhelms him, horrifies and paralyzes him. His jaw is clenched tight, and so are his hands at his sides. Winson falls to the ground, curls into a fetal position, but Dillon remains standing. Eventually, panting, he closes his eyes, and the view pulls back: the regeneration of the buildings, of the trees, the perturbations of the ground have all stopped. Dillon helps Winston to his feet, both of them shaken and solemn. They walk back out of the gate.
[private]
[private]
Yeah, probably.
[private]
I see it didn't end well.
[private]
[Sometimes that's all you can ask for for.
Dillon scrubs a hand through his perpetually neat hair, and blows out a long breath.]
We did need to see it.
[Ford knows how Dillon sees.]
[private]
[private]
And you know the funny thing?
[There's no laughter in him at all. But there's is something - thoughtful, under the wan, weary recollection.]
We had to choose. That was the very next thing. There were these - creatures, that were coming to Earth to make a meal out of it. And we could have destroyed them.
[All of them, he means. He'll never be capable of understanding the Vectors, but they were their own kind of people.]
We wanted to. The least of them had already used us badly.
I know it wouldn't have been the same at all. But I think it was important. That to control the power, we have some idea what it meant. To be capable of something like that.
[private]
So you chose not to commit genocide. That's decent of you.
[Understatement? Yes. Sarcasm? No.]
[private]
But I'm glad we didn't.
[He scrubs a hand over his face.]
You don't have to deal with this just because the ship showed it to you. But I - I mean. If you have questions, I'll answer them.
[It seems only fair.]
[private]
[HA HA YEP IT'S RECENT EXPERIENCE HE'S REFERRING TO.
But he shakes his head.]
But I think it's best for both of us if we leave that alone.
[Nah. He ain't gonna make you relive that. It was an alternate universe to his, anyway, and even if he did have questions pressing enough to make him ask Dillon, there's no way to know how relevant to his own universe they are. In all probability, the Pines family didn't exist there.]